Smoke Book Club Questions
by Kimberly Brown
These questions assume everyone has finished the book and contain spoilers, including the ending.
Smoke gives book clubs plenty to argue about: coercive control, family loyalty, vigilante justice, police corruption, and the messy line between protection and possession. The characters make choices that are easy to judge from the outside and harder to untangle once you consider fear, grief, and limited options.
Use these questions as conversation starters rather than a checklist. Pick a few that fit your group's mood, give everyone a minute to skim the list, and let disagreements breathe. You do not need to cover every question in one meeting.
Protection, Fear, and Coercive Control
- 1.Romi first comes to Smoke’s shop to buy a gun because Patrick has been harassing and stalking her, and Smoke offers her free training starting Monday. How does that first visit establish the book’s themes of protection, fear, and Devin’s family-loyalty motivation?
- 2.Patrick goes from love-bombing Romi at a gas station to forcing her to store cocaine at her beauty bar and threatening to beat the baby out of her. How do the flashbacks and present-day threats work together to show coercive control?
- 3.After Patrick forces Romi to let him and another man package cocaine in her salon, she lies to Renay about being sick and then breaks down before going to her parents’ house to sleep beside Korri. What does this sequence show about Romi’s isolation and the limits of her family’s support?
- 4.After Romi’s shop is set on fire, she stays at the Dillinger compound and is comforted by Granny Rebecca. How does the compound function as both a place of safety and a kind of confinement for Romi while she grieves?
- 5.Dana Mathis breaks into Romi’s house with a gun, blames Romi for her father and brother’s deaths, and is shot during their struggle over the gun. Did you read the shooting as self-defense, and how does Romi’s guilt afterward affect your view of that scene?
Devin, Boundaries, and Vigilante Justice
- 6.Devin tells himself Romi must stay just a client because she has baggage, yet he checks her house, brings her dessert, buys pregnancy snacks, and later stays overnight. What do his actions reveal about the gap between his stated boundaries and what he actually wants?
- 7.Devin asks Alec and Allison for advice about Romi, and both stress that her children are a package deal. How does that advice shape Devin’s later claims that Korri and Juri are his babies, even before he and Romi marry?
- 8.After Patrick causes Romi to fall and Juri is delivered early, Romi asks Devin to make Patrick suffer. Did you agree with her choice to ask him for that, or should she have kept trying to rely on the police despite the corruption around Patrick and Derrick?
- 9.Devin tortures Patrick in a warehouse, kills him with Roux, and later admits the killing to Romi. How does the novel ask readers to weigh Devin’s vigilante justice against the harm Patrick caused Romi, Korri, and Juri?
- 10.Roux shoots Patrick in the crotch, helps kill him, later shoots Derrick in the foot, and says she hates men who put hands on women or fail to take care of their responsibilities. What does Roux add to the novel’s ideas about protection and who is allowed to use violence?
Betrayal, Corruption, and Institutional Failure
- 11.Laurel is trusted enough that Romi leaves her to help run Pure Glow, but she later admits she has been with Patrick for months and filed a blueprint request in Romi’s name. How does Laurel’s betrayal affect the way you read Romi’s earlier suspicion that an employee was informing Patrick?
- 12.Derrick Mathis confronts Romi in her office and threatens to frame her for Patrick’s murder and take Juri unless she sells her business or property. What does this confrontation reveal about how corruption, property, and control are linked in the story?
- 13.Devin forces Chief Bryant to apologize to Romi, and Jaeda later finds records linking the chief to deposits from Derrick. What role does police corruption play in making Romi’s acceptance of Devin’s protection feel necessary or troubling?
Family, Blended Bonds, and the Ending
- 14.Korri asks Devin whether she should call him daddy, and they settle on Papa Devin before he proposes to Romi at breakfast. How does the novel handle blended family and Korri’s wish to have a father figure?
- 15.The book ends with Romi reopening Pure Glow Beauty Bar, launching her skincare line while pregnant with twins, and saying she is stuck with Devin. Does the ending feel earned after Patrick’s abuse, the fire, and Dana’s death, or does it resolve too neatly?